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{
    "id": 1279746,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1279746/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 191,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "various sectors, who took each other to court and made it difficult to operationalise the Climate Change Council. The proposed amendment to Clause 6 seeks to solve that problem. Clause 7 of the Bill proposes additional roles for the Cabinet Secretary responsible for matters climate change to, among others, advise the Council on carbon budgets, authorise establishment of sector-specific registries of carbon markets, and to appoint a designated national authority for market mechanisms deriving from Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. We are required to have a registry of all our carbon credits and have this put under a designated national authority. Clause 9 of the Bill replaces the Director of Climate Change Directorate with the word “Secretary” just to fit in with the Government nomenclature and designation of titles. Hon. Deputy Speaker, Clause 23(a) to Clause 23(h) introduces a new part in the principal Act. This part is about regulation of the carbon market. That is why I said at the beginning that there has been a lot of interest, especially from people in the civil society and other stakeholders who are already trading in the carbon credit market and we must, therefore, be able to regulate this sector. Clause 23(a) to Clause 23(h) is a new part of this law designed to deal with the regulatory aspects of carbon markets. As I mentioned earlier, the Paris Agreement anticipated that the Secretariat of the UNFCCC would work with State parties. Therefore, State parties are required to prepare, communicate and maintain what I referred to as NDCs in line with Article 4 of the Paris Agreement. All the State parties, including Kenya, are, therefore, required to designate a national authority for the mechanism of carbon markets - which is a mechanism under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement - and to communicate this designation to the Secretariat. The designated national authority anticipated by the Paris Agreement is carried in this amendment Bill, and will be appointed by the Cabinet Secretary as highlighted in Clause 7(2)(a). Hon. Deputy Speaker, the functions of the designated national authority will be, among others, as contained in Clause 7(2)(b), to maintain a national registry. This is to ensure that Kenya meets its international obligations both on NDCs and under Article 6 on the mechanism. As I mentioned earlier, State parties are required to designate a national authority. This is one of the areas where there has been contention because there are interested non-State parties who wanted to be designated to maintain the registries for our carbon credits. However, in line with the provisions of the Treaty of the Paris Agreement, this is supposed to be a nationally designated authority and, therefore, private entities will not be the ones maintaining our national registries of carbon credit because people will trade with carbon credit at the expense of the sovereignty of the State and the people of Kenya. A national-designated authority will enable the Government to ensure that anybody trading in carbon credits does so in the interest of the country and not in the interest of private entities. Hon. Gikaria and the Vice-Chairperson of the Committee will tell you that there are many players who want to capture this sector. The sector is not immune to State capture or capture by other players out there. It is possible to have it captured by civil society organizations, or by environmental activists. As legislators, we are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that we protect national assets, including carbon credits - which have since become national assets. We should ensure that as people trade, they do so in the interest of the country, and that nobody takes advantage of them. Hon. Deputy Speaker, those of us who have had opportunity to work with climate and drought resilience councils will tell you that even boreholes in our constituency backyards are capable of generating carbon credits, for which people can earn money. People in the villages do not know that they can earn money from the trees they have planted in their farms. People will take advantage of our people. It is important to have a national-designated authority to ensure that this does not happen."
}